The country’s largest pork processor, Rosderra Irish Meats Group, has been ordered to pay an ex-employee €30,000 compensation for forcing him to retire at the age of 65.
This follows Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator Shay Henry finding that Rosderra discriminated against Brendan Beirne on age grounds under the Employment Equality Acts 1998 when requiring Beirne to resign on reaching 65.
In June 2019, Beirne told his manager that he was seeking to work beyond his 65th birthday in August 2019 and was aware of other employees who had been afforded this.
Rosderra Irish Meats Group operates two slaughtering and processing facilities at Edenderry, Co. Offaly and Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, and Beirne worked at the group’s pork-curing facility in Jamestown, Co. Leitrim.
He stated that he had a good record with his employer and was fit and healthy and able to perform all his duties.
However, Rosderra refused to allow Beirne to work beyond his 65th birthday.
In his findings, WRC adjudicator Shay Henry stated there is an obligation on the employer to present the employee making the request to work longer with the specific objective grounds why his or her request is being refused.
Henry said that the employee should have the opportunity to test these arguments before a final decision is made.
He said that there is no evidence in this case that the objective grounds were presented to Beirne in advance of the decision to refuse his request to work longer, and therefore found that Beirne was discriminated against.
Henry said, however, that the objective grounds were put forward by Rosderra at the WRC hearing.
Rosderra Irish Meats
Henry stated that he accepted the rationale put forward by Rosderra underpinning the decision to allow certain employees work past 65 and that it was the norm in the company for employees to retire at 65.
Rosderra told the WRC hearing that two workers cited by Beirne who worked beyond their 65th birthday did so at the request of the firm as they had specialist skills.
The meat processor denied that it had discriminated against Beirne, who worked as a general operative.
The company said that the retirement of employees at age 65, including Beirne, was objectively and necessarily required.
The company stated that it was justified to ensure consistency among all employees in relation to retirement; to create certainty in succession planning; to ensure cohesion in the workforce; to ensure a uniform retirement age; to ensure that there is an age balance in the workforce; and to free up jobs so that younger workers can enter to the workforce and younger workers have an opportunity for advancement/promotion.
Rosderra stated that those aims are legitimate and justified, and the means adopted by it to achieve those aims and objectives are both appropriate and necessary.
Rosderra submitted that the measure of adhering to retirement at age 65 serves a legitimate aim or purpose in terms of succession planning, intergenerational fairness, and provision of the opportunity for advancement/promotion, and in so doing is both proportionate and objectively justified.
Rosderra stated that it is its position that Beirne was retired in line with the normal company-wide retirement age which is lawful within the provisions of Employment Equality Acts.